We arrived at 5:40 pm, and this is what we found:
Obviously, I had made an error. But I swear that is what the announcement said: Capt. Wicks Seafood at 6 pm. So we drove up and down Waterfront Drive, checked out Outriggers under the bridge, circled the parking lot at Pier 8. Nothing. Nada. No Hank Gilbert. Bummer. Would my search for a conservative leaning Democrat be over before it started?
Hey, I’m more persistent than that! I remembered that he was also scheduled to be in Houston last night, at Coffee Groundz on Bagby downtown. What the heck, we’re empty nesters now, why not? So we headed north, stopping by the house to make sure I was right this time. I was but I was also right about the Capt. Wicks event! Right there in multiple colors on my screen! We decided that a staffer had made a mistake and, with a bit of hesitation, headed up to Coffee Groundz.
It was worth the drive. Not only did we get to meet Mr. Gilbert, Hank as he prefers, but we also found out about the Capt. Wicks event. Turns out that they did show up and that they did head over to Pier 8 for seafood, I guess we were just too early. Hank said that Channel 39 came out and did an interview with him in front of the devasted Capt. Wicks. His focus was on the insurance industry under Gov. Perry and what a debacle we faced after Hurricane Ike because of the lack of regulatory oversight. I’ve tried to find that interview, it apparently isn’t posted yet but I’m looking forward to seeing it. I did find his prepared remarks for the event:
First, I want to address something that I know is near and dear to the hearts of Gulf Coast Residents. We’re standing this evening in front of Capt. Wick’s, a Seabrook landmark since 1978. It was heavily damaged by Hurricane Ike, and is still waiting to be rebuilt. Too much of the Gulf Coast is like that today.
More than a year after Hurricane Ike hit the Texas Gulf Coast, there are still neighborhoods in Houston where blue tarps take the place of Texas families having a real roof over their heads. Insurance companies have underpaid—and in some cases, not paid at all—leaving Texas families and small business owners between a rock and a hard place.
Texas consumers and business owners aren’t the only ones suffering from the Texas insurance crisis. Gulf Coast school districts are suffering, too. Many schools are forced to bear high burdens to repair structures damaged by Ike, and insurance companies and FEMA were not paying for everything.
School districts are now having to take money out of the classroom and spend it on infrastructure—and higher insurance premiums—to rebuild and protect their facilities. Rick Perry has been a dismal failure when it comes to holding insurance companies accountable.
When I’m governor, that will change.
Although his remarks are true enough, if he wanted to blast Rick Perry, there was a much, much better way to do it. Focus on his political decision to have the disaster money flow through the Office of Rural Community Affairs, a ridiculous decision designed solely to promote Rick Perry. Which, of course, is what Rick Perry does best. Even Houston Chronicle columnist Rick Casey understands this:
ORCA in this case is not a whale. It’s the state’s Office of Rural Community Affairs, and it was tasked by Gov. Rick Perry with deciding how to divvy out the federal recovery funds for Ike and Dolly.
Choosing an agency with “rural” in its title was, of course, a political decision. We shouldn’t be surprised that it would come up with a plan that starts by treating population density as irrelevant.
According to an analysis by Gulf Coast Interfaith, a respected Galveston community organization, ORCA’s approach puts Ike’s damage factor in Chambers County at higher than either Galveston or Harris counties. Yet Galveston County had 10 times more documented damaged homes than Chambers, and Harris County had 36 times more.
The analysis indicated money available to homes with more than $8,000 in damage would average $27,111 in the Houston/Galveston area but $237,047 in deep East Texas.
That’s right, they wanted to spend about nine times the amount in rural areas versus our area. Completely ridiculous. The Galveston County Daily News has covered this very well.
Gov. Rick Perry’s office confirmed Wednesday that he instructed the Texas Department of Rural Affairs to change its funding formula. The agency’s original plan used a formula based on Ike’s winds, storm surge and flooding.
Because the weather model didn’t give any more weight to more populated areas, rural communities north and west of Galveston County received more of the funding.
And the good haired governor gets to look like a hero. This is what Mr. Gilbert should have focused on, IMO. I do understand his broader point on the insurance industry in Texas and agree that it is out of control but our communities have been severely impacted by this decision of Gov. Perry. I spoke to Harris County Judge Ed Emmett about this over a month ago and he too is frustrated by it.
But hey, you can’t win them all. Maybe we’ll hear more about that the next time Hank strolls through the area.
Back to Coffee Groundz and actually meeting him. It was great, he is a super nice, down to earth Texan through and through. As this was a meet and greet, and I didn’t identify myself as a blogger of note (ahem), I will consider our discussion off the record and not repeat his remarks other than to say I still don’t know if he is conservative leaning but I think he might be. He was very personable and answered tough questions directly – I’m looking forward to seeing him talk about the issues publicly.
One of the things he told everyone was that he was going to put a series of issues on his website with his specific plan to address them, let the public comment on them, change them if need be and then put them on the table at the start of his first legislative session as governor and tell the legislators, here you go, this is what the people of Texas elected me to do, now just get it done. Like I said, a true Texan.
Oh, and one more thing, my wife liked him. A lot. They discussed issues related to healthcare, illegal immigrants and insurance. Let’s just say that Hank didn’t give your typical rhetorical conservative answers but his answers were very intriguing indeed. Very. And most importantly, he took a call in the middle of our conversation, telling us it was his wife and he learned in 2006 while he was running for Ag Commissioner that he should always take her call.
My wife liked that.
